


I've done some things that I shouldn't have done (But I haven't stopped loving you once)

by Bughead_19



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Betty Cooper Loves Jughead Jones, Betty cheats on Jughead, Betty is a self sabotaging idiot, Cheating, F/M, Hopeful Ending, I also have a lot of crackships, I am very sad, I have a talent for justifying bullshit though so there's that, I was planning on ignoring canon, If you find cheating triggering this isn't for you, It might help you to write about it, Mental Health Issues, So much angst, So yikes, angsty, but I didn't at all, but I find cheating triggering and I wrote it, but writing this has been oddly cathartic, possibly my last work for this fandom, this is betty centric, this made me sad, this was like therapy, this was written by someone that was very sad and the grammar is probably shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23573704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bughead_19/pseuds/Bughead_19
Summary: Everything is terrible and awful and Betty hangs on by a single thread known as Jughead Jones.But Jughead is falling tooOr: If Riverdale wants to finally acknowledge it's character's trauma I can play that game too
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, but not very nice to them!, obviously - Relationship, there is some barchie
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	I've done some things that I shouldn't have done (But I haven't stopped loving you once)

Betty wishes she wasn’t crazy. She wishes she could be more secure with everything around her but she can’t. Everything is terrible and awful and she hangs on by a single thread known as Jughead Jones. 

But Jughead is falling too. He tries to pretend like he’s not, but he is. She wants to help him, but all of a sudden he’s distant. It’s like he died after the incident and she was with his ghost. And she hates it, she hates it more than she can understand. 

And everything gets worse and worse. Her friends are all good, they have Hedwig and everything, and she sees them smile and be happy and all she feels is empty. Betty is so empty and she has no one to talk to.

She holds Jughead at night, feels him shake, and tries to comfort him, but he just drifts further and further away.

She knows he loves her, she sees it in his eyes, and the way he holds her. And the part of her that still feels knows she loves him. But it isn’t easy anymore. It never was, but they’re both spiraling and it’s getting harder to hold on. 

\---  
And one day shit hits the fan. A teacher asks her about Jughead, he hasn’t been doing his work or going to class, and she’s worried about him staying back a year. Betty panics, she can’t lose him, she can’t lose the only thing she has left. 

So she goes home, and she starts a fight with him about it. And he fights back, hard. And at the end of it Betty feels like she is falling. Like the one little iceberg she was floating on has melted and she had plunged right into the sea. 

Her relationship is gone. Everything in her life has been on the same terrible train for three years. And she’s empty. 

So she goes to rehersal. Veronica isn’t there, and she sees the same heartbreak in Archie’s eyes. Maybe she was right, maybe Archie is her destiny, and dating Jughead was just delaying the inevitable. A bit of something soul crushing that leaves her numb, and ready for him. And she kisses him. And when it stops, she can’t even bother herself with how she feels about it all. All she can think is that Jughead is going to be so hurt. 

So she pretends it didn’t happen. Jughead comes back with an apology, and she realizes that he never thought they were broken up. And she realizes she’s ruined everything. 

She lets herself fall back into her relationship. Pretending everything is alright. She’s just like her mother. She’ll never escape that. And things are okay for a while. Betty is still sad and still numb, but she can ignore that and pretend everything is okay. 

And like it always does, things implode. Everyone finds out, right before graduation. Veronica, Toni, Cheryl and Kevin stop talking to her. But Jugheads the worst. She sees his heart break in slow motion. Her fantasies of them running off into the sunset are dead. 

They both sit on the edge of her bed for a while, in silence. A few tears slip down his eyes. She feels them roll down hers, but it’s like she isn’t in there. She’s floating above it all. 

“Sometimes I feel like I died in that bunker.” 

“I feel like I died a long time ago.”

He nodded. 

“I do love you” she whispered. It didn’t make a difference anymore. Not like it used to. She didn’t say it to hear it back. Just so he knew one last time. 

“I know.” he said back, standing up and kissing her cheek. “I really hope you find a way to get past all this and be happy someday.” 

And then he walks out the door. They are their parents. And the part of Betty that still felt something dies.  
\------

She and Archie get together. There isn’t much else to do. They go to college, Betty does her homework, and studies and does everything perfect. She doesn’t even feel the rage she used to at that. 

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t think of him everyday. She wonders if he still wears the beanie she made him. She hopes he doesn’t 

One day she and Archie are sitting on his dorm room bed. The sex isn’t bad, it might be good even, but she always thinks of something Polly said, after one of her misguided attempts to forget Jason junior year. “Don’t have sex with someone you actually like first.” 

“Do you regret it?” She doesn’t have to specify what “it” is. She knows Archie will be honest with her. 

He sighs. “Everyday.”

She nods, and sneaks out when he falls asleep. Leaving a note explaining that she couldn’t do this anymore. She knows he can’t either, she sees it’s killing him. It would be killing her too if she weren’t already dead. 

She books an appointment for therapy that night, the fear that she’ll end up a case study in a book somewhere still a fear in her mind. But she’s not sure she can keep existing like this. 

\---

Betty is 21, browsing Barnes and Nobles when she sees it. She opens the cover and flips to the back, and the picture affects her more than she expected it too. 

He looks so serious, but still so gorgeous. More mature but still the boy she knew. 

Before she can think about it she’s buying it. 

She reads it all in one night. She can hear his voice reading it, it still has the same style he used to write in, with an added maturity. It spans from Jason’s death to his miraculous return to life. The names are all changed, but it’s obvious who she is. 

She relives everything that happened to her. And it hurts, badly. But nothing prepares her for the last page. 

It’s not the real last page, the story ended on page 465, it’s behind the acknowledgements, but the last page has a picture of a note in his handwriting “I loved her, and despite it all I still do.” 

And Betty cries, actually sobs, for the first time in 3 years. 

\----

She realizes the only way to move forward is to make peace with it all. She buys a burner phone, does a lot of digging for numbers (god she missed investigating.)

She calls them at times she knows they won’t answer. Veronica is first. She’s the first one she needs to fix it with. 

She manages to stay relatively composed through it all. Though her heart is breaking. 

“Hi Veronica. I’d like to start by saying this is not me asking for forgiveness. I do not deserve it nor do I want it. I need to confront what I’ve done so I can move on. I know I don’t deserve to move on, but I don’t know what else to do. You were the first female friend I ever had. I was always really shy, and I just stumbled into being friends with the boys by accident. And then I met you, and you were the coolest person who’d ever wanted to talk to me. And then I got to know you more and you were, and probably are one of the kindest, more compassionate people I’ve ever met. And I ruined everything for you. I really did. I think about you all the time and I hope you were able to find great friends in new york. At least ones that are more deserving of you. I see pictures of you sometimes, in magazines in the store and you look so beautiful every time. Even when it’s not meant to be a good picture you just shine. I miss you, I had no clue how hard it would be to hear your voice again. Archie still loves you. I know that doesn’t mean much with what we did, but he does. I’m going to throw this phone away after this, so goodbye I guess. I’m sorry.” 

Archie’s next.

“Hi Arch. I’m trying to move on, and I need to face my demons to do that. I’m sorry I left you that night. You were hurting as much as I was, honestly probably more. I’m sorry I initiated that kiss. I’m sorry what we did made you lose the love of your life and your best friend. Everything’s fucked up, I was a terrible girlfriend, and a terrible friend before that, and I am deeply sorry. I’m throwing this phone away tomorrow, so don’t call the number back. ” 

She takes a deep breath. Before dialing the next number. It was the same one he’s always had. She doesn’t have a plan for this one. 

“Hi. It’s- if you don’t know now,I’m sure you will by the end. I’m not sure where to start. I had a plan for everyone else but not for you. Congrats on the book. It was amazing, I knew it would be. I’ve read it five times, and then I bought the audiobook. I wanted to hear your voice. I hope everythings good for you. Sometimes when I was at my worst I used to imagine what your life was like. Girlfriend, great grades, still writing. I told myself I hoped you never thought of me, but we both know I’m not that selfless. You told me you wanted me to be happy someday. If you meant it, I want you to know I’m in therapy now.” she starts to cry “I’m sorry for what I did. I think hurting you is the thing I regret most in my entire life and I have done a lot of shitty things to a lot of people. I don’t want to justify it. It’s unjustifiable but I just want you to know what happened. I’m sure you went through a phase of blaming yourself. I know you. I thought we were over that night. I guess in a way we were. You were all I had left, which looking back was not healthy, and I was already really not doing well. I have a lot wrong with me. Stuff you couldn’t fix, and you were dealing with your own issues I couldn’t fix. And when you started pulling away a bit, I completely spiralled, and I did it. And I regret it. Every day. And the worst part is I lied about it. I lied about it because I still loved you and that was the only thing I had left. And It’s pathetic and cruel but I still love you. They say you’re supposed to take half the time of the relationship, and we’ve almost been apart as long as we were together and I just can’t get over you. God this has gone off the rails. I love you so much, and I have to accept everyday that I hurt the one person in this world who truly accepted me, and I can’t fix it. You would have been willing to kill someone for me and I did one of the few things we couldn’t come back from. And knowing you love me too, I think, should have made it better but it didn’t. Because I fucked it up and I don’t think we can fix it. I love you, and I don’t think I could ever stop loving you. I’m sorry.”

She hangs up.  
\---  
Two years later they’re all back in Riverdale. She walks into Ronnie’s,the door ringing as she comes in. She sees the familiar mop of black hair, beanieless thank god, turn around to look at her. She looks into his eyes for the first time in years and time stops. 

“Betty Cooper.” he says, an unexpected but slight smile on his lips

“Jughead Jones” 

“Do you want to join me?”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if it's just me but like I could accept Betty and Jughead getting together again after the time jump. I think time heals all wounds, and while cheating is an especially tricky one I think Betty does love Jughead more than anything else and vice versa. That being said I’m done watching Riverdale. I’ll probably watch Bughead scenes for the rest of the season and binge the 5th season on netflix when it’s all over. I hate them for doing this because I think it’s out of character, which is why I wrote this fic, to try to justify it character wise. A part of me hopes Jughead does something really messed up in the fight so I can still ship them... but... Please don't watch Riverdale this week. The universe gave us the gift of knowing what's happening in advance, use it.


End file.
